Orbis’s comprehensive global network of volunteer medical professionals provide ophthalmic education and instruction to eye care teams in low-resourced countries around the globe to increase their skills, improve service delivery and the quality of patient care.

For nearly 40 years, the keystone of our work has been to teach and train eye health professionals to prevent and treat avoidable blindness.

Our global cadre of volunteer medical professionals is made up of a diverse pool of experts covering every subspecialty of ophthalmology – including nursing, anaesthesiology, biomedical engineering and ophthalmic technicians – from over 30 countries around the globe. In following academic traditions, as selfless and dedicated teachers and trainers – we proudly refer to our network of volunteers as Orbis Volunteer Faculty.

The Orbis Flying Eye Hospital first visited Mongolia in 1989 to help improve the skills of local eye teams. Since then there have been further training projects on board the Flying Eye Hospital, in local hospitals, and online via our telemedicine platform, Cybersight.

In Mongolia, there are an estimated 340,000 people with vision loss. Of these, 15,000 people are blind.

Access to high quality, affordable eye care services are limited in both urban and rural areas.

Lack of equipment, training and infrastructure are major barriers to adequate care. As well as this, there is a need for a more comprehensive framework to treat children’s eye disease.

Sight loss disproportionately affects women, with women making up 57% of people living with blindness.

Working with our partners and thanks to the help of supporters like you, Orbis have:

Trained hundreds of eye health professionals to screen for, diagnose and treat eye conditions in babies and children
Educated eye health professionals about retinopathy of prematurity and the use of important diagnostic tests such as the red reflex test
Supported five diabetic clinics to use retinal imaging to screen for diabetic retinopathy
Supported the establishment or improvement of four secondary hospitals, three tertiary hospitals and one training lab

Orbis is working with partners to:

Train and increase the number of doctors to treat newborns with an eyesight condition
Improve screening and diagnosis of retinopathy of prematurity
Improve diabetic retinopathy care by strengthening collaboration between diabetes and ophthalmology clinics

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To learn more about the activities in Mongolia, please visit the country webpage here.